The guest and the darkness!

Indian poet Javed Akhtar has not only hurt Pakistani’s sentiments on his recent trip to Lahore but also proved that he is a classless person

If you ever had any doubt that Pakistan wasn’t a good host, then just take a look at the recent visit of Indian screenwriter and poet Javed Akhtar. He was in Lahore at the invitation of the organisers of the Faiz Festival and had a session with the grandson of the legendary poet Adeel Hashmi over the weekend, however, he spoke his mind without realising that it wasn’t the time and the place. Letting him go back unharmed the next day was something only a gracious host would do because he not only broke the trust of his hosts, crossed the line but also hurt the sentiments of his audience.

What he spoke at the event might have been correct in his mind but he forgot the three simple rules of public speaking – know your audience, know your material, and know your passion. The audience at the Faiz Festival was there just to see someone from across the border and even if a mediocre Bollywood actor had been invited instead, they would have graced the venue just for a glimpse. Since he spoke about Pakistan’s inability to invite Lata Mangeshkar for a concert while being at a literature festival, he proved that he had no clue about the audience.

Moving ahead, he said that Mehdi Hasan and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan repeatedly performed in India but forgot to mention that the first time NFAK went to India was on an invitation from veteran film actor and director Raj Kapoor, to perform at his son Rishi Kapoor’s wedding celebration. The government didn’t invite him then and later, especially when he became a world-renowned personality and performed in the West more than in the East. As for Mehdi Hassan, he was always willing to perform anywhere provided he got paid for it, and I have met people who saw him perform for merely nothing except a few hundred rupees, privately in Pakistan.

What Javed Akhtar tried to say was that Lata should have been invited to perform in Pakistan like Mehdi Hassan and Nusrat were invited in India, but the Pakistani duo went to India because there was no one like them across the border; in the case of Lata, we had her mentor Madam Noor Jehan and it wouldn’t have been appropriate for either Lata or Asha to perform in Pakistan during Mallika Tarannum’s lifetime. Noor Jehan was so popular even in India that once veteran film actor Pran told Pakistani students that India would gladly hand over Kashmir to Pakistan only if they hand over Noor Jehan to India.

Javed Akhtar might have been hibernating in a cave when Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam, Alka Yagnik, Jagjit Singh, Sukhbir, and even Abhijeet came to Pakistan to perform, sometimes at private functions, sometimes in a concert, and sometimes in films. It would have been great had someone told him that Sonu Nigam in fact sang two already recorded songs in a Pakistani film Salakhein two decades back before he performed in the historic concert in Karachi while Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Jaspinder Narula, Alka Yagnik, Abhijeet, and Sadhna Sargam did playback singing for Pakistani films during the late 90s and early 2000s.

Moving on to actors and actresses, many Indian actors have worked in Pakistani films and TV, including Sheila Ramani and Meena Shorey in the 1950s to Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah in the current millennium. Besides the A-listers such as Poonam Dhillon, Vinod Khanna, Arbaaz Khan, Kirron Kher, Johhny Lever, as well as Neha Dhupia, and Kanwaljit Singh, even B-listers like Amna Sharif, Nausheen Ali Sardar, Pooja Kanwal, Shewta Tiwari, Sara Khan, Amrita Arora, Preeti Jhangiani, Deepti Gupta, Hrishitaa Bhatt, and Kim Sharma had worked across the border without any issues. Had Javed Akhtar known that it was Bollywood that sent back Pakistani actors and not the other way around, he would have kept his mouth shut. Hence proven, that he didn’t know his material and failed the second rule big time.

As for the third rule – passion – he did seem passionate enough while blaming Pakistan for everything bad that was happening in India but forgot that first Pakistan is too small compared to India and usually bigger countries create problems for the smaller ones, and not the other way around. Javed Akhtar kept blaming the host country (Pakistan) for creating problems in his country (India) when in fact, his own country was behind everything bad happening in the country where he was a guest, a visitor, and someone who was supposed to diffuse tension, not create tension. While saying that the attackers allegedly behind Mumbai attacks weren’t from Norway and Egypt, but are freely roaming in Pakistan, he must be having brain fog as he forgot that Pakistan shot down an Indian plane, but sent back the pilot named Abhinandan for the sake of humanity and even has one Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadav in custody, for spying in Pakistan.

This isn’t the first time Javed Akhtar has said something completely nonsensical while in Pakistan. He has made a habit of saying his mind without realising that he usually doesn’t carry the smart section when he crosses the border. There is no denial of his creative prowess but his brainless statements has made him a discourteous person. He should learn some ethics from his former writing partner Salim Khan who has never said anything controversial about Pakistan. In fact, in his first hit film since splitting with Javed Akhtar – Naam – the character that bails the hero Sanjay Dutt out of prison is shown to be a Pakistani. It would have been great had Javed Akhtar shown grace and said something that mended bridges between the two countries, instead of proving that he is just an orator, who doesn’t have research to help him out.

Javed Akhtar must thank his stars that he was sharing the stage with Adeel Hashmi who seemed to be in awe of him, and that famous Pakistani filmmaker, politician, author, and advertising guru Javed Jabbar wasn’t there in the audience to counter him. Because the last time the two met, JJ showed to the world that the writer behind Sholay, Shaan, Shakti, and Deewar wasn’t even well-versed in his country’s own history, let alone the history of the region. And yet, we keep promoting stooges from across the border when many intellectuals are still waiting to be invited to an event, in their own country.